Theatre by the Lake looking for writers for project with acclaimed company Paines Plough

Theatre by the Lake is looking for local writers to work with them on ‘Come to Where I Am’, a project with the acclaimed new writing company Paines Plough. In partnership with Paines Plough, the theatre is co-commissioning four new short plays from writers about the places they call home and their relationship to home at this time.

In response to a rapidly changing world, where all touring and live performance is currently on hiatus, Paines Plough have launched ‘Come to Where I Am’ as a spin-off series of an existing Paines Plough project called ‘Come To Where I’m From’ which has so far commissioned over 160 existing short plays over the past 10 years. As well as Theatre by the Lake, Paines Plough is partnering with Derby Theatre, Eastern Angles, Open Clasp Theatre Company Newcastle, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Reading Rep Theatre, and Sheffield Theatres to co-commission 30 new short plays.

Successful writers will be offered £250 each per commission for a ten minute play, and will receive script development support. They will be asked to film themselves at home performing their own play and these will be edited and released as visual-audio pieces. They will then be performed at the partnering theatres, including Theatre by the Lake, when they reopen.

Alongside the plays being available online for anyone to enjoy, Paines Plough will also create a unique live performance of the plays over the phone, allowing isolated audience groups to access on-demand culture. The company will be working in collaboration with celebrated actors to provide this caller service including David Bradley, Julie Hesmondhalgh and Sally Dynevor – with more still to be announced. To deliver the service Paines Plough will work with the partner theatres to identify potential user groups within their communities.

Theatre by the Lake’s Artistic Director Liz Stevenson said: “We are so delighted to be part of this brilliant project. At a time when our theatre is closed, it feels even more important to still be creating work and connecting with our community, and we’re really excited by the idea of discovering and developing local writers, and exploring what home means to them. So if you consider Cumbria to be your home then we want to hear from you! You don’t need to see yourself as a playwright or have ever written anything for the stage before – we really just want people to give this a go and get in touch.”

Theatre by the Lake is asking anyone interested in this project to email an A4 sample of writing (any kind of writing – prose, poetry, or an excerpt from a play etc) plus a bit about you and your interest in this project (of up to 200 words), to [email protected] by 5pm Tuesday 5th May. To find out more see www.theatrebythelake.com/cometowhereIam